Life-Sized Brute (Jiralhanae) Costume

[Saber]

Hello once again, members of the 405th!

I am back after a long hiatus and the projects that I'm working on never seem to shrink.

You've seen my work before:
The life-sized Halo 4 Hunter, the life-sized Engineer, and now the life-sized Brute from Halo 2 Anniversary.

This costume is a joint project done between myself and LostViking and we've been working on this beast for about three months now.

Our plan is to get this finished in time for a debut at PAX West this year in September located in Seattle. Then, we'll be taking it to Rose City Comic Con the following weekend to enter the Costume Contest!

With how we're making this costume, we're building the entire Brute anatomy. That makes this costume completely customizable! We will be making different armors/ outfits for this one body so the costume never looks the same. We'll even have switchable heads if we want to go for different faces/ scars/ hairstyles.

We're starting with the Base Brute Minor from Halo 2 Anniversary for now, but we will be making more costumes for the Brute along the line.

So now for media updates.

Here are some videos I have made of the progress so far.

Since I'm currently at work, I don't have my photo progress readily available. But I will be adding them at a later time.

If you want to stay updated on the Brute costume, please be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel because I will be likely posting updates there before I post here.

Here are my videos in order.

I'm not completely up-to-date on my videos on my progress due to work and then working on the Brute on nights/ weekends, but I will be making an effort to keep that up to date as often as possible.

I will also be opening some livestreams when I start the sculpting process on the Brute head.

Thank you guys for checking out the thread!

 

[Saber]

And here is the 6th video.

The forums doesn't want me posting more than 5 media pieces at a time.

 

[FANGS]

Welcome back! Thank you for sharing your build!

 

[TPceebee]

Awesome work! It's always nice to see progress videos on lifesize builds. I'm currently working on a 7ft 5 arbiter costume, so seeing how you're building this brute is super helpful!

 

[Saber]

This will take quite a few posts to get all these images in, so please forgive the post spam. I figured you guys would like to see all my picture progress anyway since my videos aren't up to date yet.

Here are the reference images we started with.

We started off by building the stilts. We wanted to start literally from the ground up so we could figure out the scale of what we were doing.
We used drywall stilts for the Hunter and we found that them being so unstable and rocky wasn't the best choice that we had for the Brute, so we went and made our own.

Then we went forward and sculpted the footprints.

The idea of this was so when we created the stilts out of wood, the footprints were there to dampen the sound of the wood as the Brute walked. I sculpted them out of plastilina clay and molded out of Plaster of Paris.

This is the beginning of the project. Due to the forums' 10 pieces of media per post, I'll probably be making multiple posts to catch everyone up. Apologies!

 

[Saber]

After the molds were made, we poured in a SmoothOn product called Urecoat. It's a rubber that is meant to be used in thin coats, but we used a bit more for the purpose of being heavy duty and protecting the bottom of the stilts.
Fully cured, this stuff was like a car tire!

After it cured, we unfortunately found out that the Urecoat will stick to anything, even if you mold release the crap out of it. So we ended up busting up the molds off the cured footpads with hammers and then eventually moved to pressure washing it off since it was taking so long.

Once we got the stilts set, we needed to map out where body parts were going. Since we had a duct tape mannequin of our costume-wearer. we had that lay down on top of a scale print-out of the Brute to figure out scale.

Once we figured out the scale for the shins/ calves, then we got to carving.

To Be Continued...

 

[Saber]

The learning curve for this project was super fast, we found out the best glues for upholstery foam, which kind we needed, and how to cut it with which blades.

It started off from being super blocky...

To still kinda blocky...

To not so blocky!

We also had to cut off the toes and add extensions because they just weren't long enough. So these toes overlap the footprint's toes a little.

Then we had our wearer of the costume try them out.

Size comparison. He's 6'4".

I think he likes them.

Here are the toe nails that we made from sanded EVA foam.

And the starts of the plates that go between the toes.

 

[SI3RRA 117]

This is looking amazing. Can't wait to see more. I have a feeling this is going to be epic.

 

[Saber]

Now onto the thighs!

I started with a thigh shape that would be separate from the shin pieces, but then we decided that we wanted the legs to be whole units so we didn't have to try and figure out how to cover holes in the joints.

After the first thigh was made, I tried a different approach on the base form with the second thigh and carved it that way.

We also tried to emulate the bumps on the skin by gluing small domes cut from upholstery foam, but we ended up scrapping them because we didn't like them.

We also added windows in the sides of the calves so we can access our wearer's shoes and tie them for him.

 

[TPceebee]

Interesting. I'm curious as to what sort of density and thickness your upholstery foam is. Also, Is there enough give in the joint to allow the wearer to bend his leg easily without altering the material type or thickness or have you reduced the thickness?

 

[Saber]

Interesting. I'm curious as to what sort of density and thickness your upholstery foam is. Also, Is there enough give in the joint to allow the wearer to bend his leg easily without altering the material type or thickness or have you reduced the thickness?

The main portion of the body is being made from 1" and 2" foam camp pads that you can find in stores like Fred Meyers (if you don't live on the West Coast, you can try Walmart)

Because I'm shaving down the foam quite a lot to get the desired shape, it's still really flexible and bends easily.

 

[GMer56]

For the skin texture you could try some of that "wall texture in a can" stuff I've seen in home improvement stores. Not sure how it would react to all the bending though, might need to put some Flex Seal over it or something.

 

[Saber]

For the skin texture you could try some of that "wall texture in a can" stuff I've seen in home improvement stores. Not sure how it would react to all the bending though, might need to put some Flex Seal over it or something.

We already have an idea for what we will use for the skin texture.

We're going to be using this liquid latex called RD-407 that is a professional mask latex and we'll chunk up cottonballs into it and tack it to the body parts to create the texture.

We're almost to that point, but not yet.

 

[Saber]

New Update videos have been posted to my YouTube Channel.

I'll post more picture updates soon!

And some goofery.

 

[Saber]

More leg progress!

As we were sculpting the body parts, we found out that it is very difficult to make the upholstery foam smooth, so what we decided is to use 1/4 inch foam as a "skin" and lay it over top of the base sculpt.

It worked very well!

It looks really natural, right?

After the legs were mostly skinned, we had our wearer try on the legs again to see if the thighs would impede his movement.

We had more fun with it.

After the test, we went on with gluing down the skin foam to the rubber of the footpads. This would make the skin less likely to peel up while at the same time, the footpads won't flop down in the weaker areas.

We used E6000 to hold it down and then held it in place with duct tape for 24 hours.

It did the trick.

Foot comparisons!!

 

[Saber]

Another round of pictures!

Here's the progress for sculpting the hips/butt/crotch.

Starts off very blocky, then ends at weird alien-butt.

It fit pretty well with the legs and lined up on Jeremie's body perfectly.

We got it skinned pretty quick.

Get swol. He never skips leg day.

Then we started figuring out where we wanted to start the torso. We began by making a corrugated plastic rib.

Then we attached it to a pack frame that Jeremie will wear in order to keep the torso aligned.

Next round of pics coming soon!

Any and all input is greatly appreciated!

 

[Hibson]

No real input here. Just a "Wow, amazing!"

 

[Saber]

After we got the ribs attached, we got the first layer of foam down. Behold the marshmallow monster!

Then we did a little tummy tuck.

Then capped it off at the top while adding a couple more inches in height to the shoulders.

Then fast forward the carving process.

Close up of front detail.

Close up of back detail when half complete.

 

[Dirtdives2424]

Ok, this is just FANTASTIC!!!!!! playing catch-up. How will you work out visibility and articulation of the arms?

 

[Saber]

Ok, this is just FANTASTIC!!!!!! playing catch-up. How will you work out visibility and articulation of the arms?

We're gettin' there You'll see shortly!

After we sculpted the chest, we got it all skinned and it really brought it together.

Now onto the belt and bandoleer!

We started with a long strip of EVA foam and glued end to end. The Brute's waist ended up measuring 88" around and the shoulder strap was the same length.

Our plan was to make the base out of EVA foam and then wrap it out of pleather to give it that leather look without paying an arm and a leg for genuine leather. The EVA foam also gave it the desired thickness that we needed.

Genuine leather may be more expensive... But daaaannnnggggggg pleather isn't that great, either. Thank God for coupons!

Then we made the buckle out of EVA foam and giant googly eyes.

We covered the EVA foam belt around the edges with a nice red pleather and then made a top layer out of brown pleather.

Then we made a top layer with a ring of 1/4" EVA foam wrapped in brown pleather.

After the layers were glued together, we drilled holed and threaded leather cording to give it that sewn look.

Belt on the body

Body with belt and Gabe's Brute Shot for size comparison.